


Bloodied Petals and Broken Smiles

by Kieran (Ameenjouee)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hanahaki Disease, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Flower Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-15 11:17:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13612239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ameenjouee/pseuds/Kieran
Summary: Getting Hanahaki was definitely not something Hinata had ever expected, least of all for someone like Kageyama.





	Bloodied Petals and Broken Smiles

**Author's Note:**

> Hi hi, this was written and posted to my tumblr as a request fill for an anon! They simply requested KageHina angst, and I delivered with some Hanahaki Disease. 
> 
> The flowers and their meanings used in this:  
> Gardenia - secret love  
> Carnation (yellow) - rejection, disappointment  
> Rose (blue) - unattainable, “I can’t have you but I can’t stop thinking about you.”

The funny thing about falling in love with your friend is you never _mean to._  

And it makes every interaction you have with them feel like thorns, especially when you’re too afraid to say a damn thing about it to them. 

Of course, that’s not nearly enough suffering, though. 

Hinata almost wishes, for once, he had never met Kageyama, had never went to Karasuno or gotten into volleyball. 

He almost wishes his life were different, a situation where he wasn’t staring wide-eyed at a coughed-up Gardenia petal one morning, knowing full well that this spelled the beginning of the end of everything he currently knew. 

It wasn’t too bad - he may not be the brightest when it came to school, but he’d long known about Hanahaki and it’s stages and just how fucked he truly was. 

* * *

Hiding something like the fact you’re coughing up flower petals was surprisingly difficult, a fact that Hinata learned pretty quickly - he got it past his mom and sister easily enough that morning, but had a few more problems hiding it from his teammates and Kageyama during morning club activities. 

It didn’t hurt, it was mostly an annoying itch and the dull panic in the back of his mind until classes began - not being near Kageyama during those was a mild relief for a change. The boredom was welcome as long as he wasn’t under the risk of coughing up more petals than he already would be throughout the day. 

* * *

Barely a week. That’s how long it took for Hinata to cough often enough for his mom to know.

Two days after that, Suga pieced it together, too. 

Neither asked who it was for - that wasn’t important at the moment - instead focusing on the questions like how long he’d been coughing petals, how he was feeling, if he was in pain, if he needed to take a break.

And while he appreciated their concern, it just made him feel worse. 

Suga’s suggestion of ‘ _maybe think about getting the surgery if you have no plans to confess to whoever it is_ ’ had nearly been enough to set him off into a spiraling meltdown. 

The surgery. Something everyone who found out would be pushing him to get. 

But he didn’t want to forget. He didn’t want to lose the feelings - okay, so maybe he did, sometimes, when the coughing got bad and it slowly escalated to full flowers and not just petals and kept him awake late into the night - and he didn’t want the risk that he’d forget all about Kageyama and the memories they shared, the memories tied to him and thus the rest of the team. 

Even if it meant he died, he didn’t want to willingly give that up. 

* * *

Natsu found out the hard way - Hinata had hoped she’d never find out, that he could keep it hidden forever and if he died it would just be ‘ _he was sick_ ’ and that be the end of it. 

But instead, she found out due to her coming to see what was taking him to long to join them for dinner one evening only to find him with a handful of flowers that were covered in the beginnings of blood specs and saliva. 

White and yellow, dancing with small bits of red. 

Hinata barely saw her before she screamed for their mom, and it was all he could do to keep from crying himself when he saw his little sister break down because she was afraid of losing him. 

He called Suga once dinner was over - he barely ate anything, he wasn’t hungry regardless and he felt like he was being suffocated still - and asked if he could meet him somewhere.

He just wanted out. Away from the sorrow that was hanging over his house and family now, away from his thoughts.

* * *

At that point, the rest of the team slowly found out - Kageyama was one of the last, and he was the one to react the worst to the news.

Hinata didn’t show back up to practice after that. 

Probably for the best, he could barely breathe through the beginnings of practice anymore anyway, the flowers in his lungs and throat threatening to choke him into unconsciousness every time he got within the same room as Kageyama.

They didn’t let him quit - he was told to do all he could to feel better, he was more than welcome to come back to the team at any time. 

The first full carnation was coughed up, blood specked, the day he stopped showing up. Bright yellow - he used to love the color, it was happy. Now it just left him feeling hollow. 

With him not being around Kageyama as much now - the rest of the team refused to leave him alone, which was a bit surprising and more than a little annoying after a week and a half of constant pestering - it didn’t hurt as much. 

He still coughed up too many petals, too many flowers, for him to pretend he didn’t have the disease, but it was better. 

No one mentioned the surgery again after Hinata yelled at Daichi for asking why he didn’t get it before it was too late to save him. 

Noya and Tanaka both asked who it was for - Hinata knew better to tell them, they’d only try to fix it by trying to get the feelings to be reciprocated. 

He wasn’t even sure he wanted that to happen at this point. 

He had long since accepted his only choices were the surgery or dying.

He could live with that.

* * *

He hadn’t been prepared for a two-in-the-morning wake up call about a week after everyone finally stopped pestering him and let things return to normal. 

He hadn’t been prepared to cough into his hand only for there to be a sharp pain in his throat and for his hand to come away red with a single blue petal left behind. 

A rose. 

A fucking blue rose.

 _Figures_ , he thought bitterly. He would wind up with the one flower that would cause him to choke to death on his own blood. 

* * *

Everyone knew when he showed up in the gym that morning for morning club activities - the first time in almost two months - that it had gotten worse.

Suga and Daichi shared a look that Hinata knew too well - the same one they always shared when him and the other first years got into petty arguments or did something stupid, the same one that showed they were concerned for someone’s well being but not sure how to address the situation. 

Surprisingly, it was Kageyama who spoke. “Are you ready to get the surgery yet, dumbass? That way you can come back to us?”

Another first in a while. Two in one, actually. 

Mentioning the surgery to Hinata - a month - and Kageyama speaking to him in general - just over two months. 

Hinata didn’t try to smile or reply to his questions. He looked to Daichi pointedly. “When’s the next game?”

“You’re not playing the next game,” Daichi said immediately, his voice no nonsense. “Hinata, you’re sick,”

Well, that answered that, he supposed. 

* * *

He managed to make it two days of showing up at practices again before someone realized it was a rose that he’d gotten most recently. 

Kageyama was the one to notice - during a break, Hinata had disappeared to the door to cough, as they’d been allowing recently so that he could clear the petals from his throat. 

Hinata supposed morbid curiosity kicked in with Kageyama, because the next thing he was aware of was the raven haired setter yelling at him. “You’ve got a fucking rose growing inside you and you won’t go get the surgery so you don’t die?!”

Silence.

Well. So much for that. 

He was sure by then, looking at everyone else’s expressions, they knew who it was for anyway. He didn’t have any more questions to answer. 

* * *

Hospitals were Hinata’s least favorite place in the world. They were too quiet, too still, and smelled too much like every bad thing in the world, casually covered by antiseptic smells. 

Even more, he hated that he was sat there with his teammates in the room with him, waiting for his mom and sister to show up. 

His mom wasn’t going to make him get the surgery. They’d talked about it a few times already. 

His teammates wanted him to, but they wouldn’t force the decision. 

Or well

Kageyama tried to a few times. 

And it always led to someone else intervening with ‘ _it’s his decision_ ’.

Hinata hated the sorrow in their expressions and voices when it came to that. 

It was his decision, and it was hurting them. 

* * *

Late stage-three surgery was rarely successful. 

Everyone knew it. 

And maybe that’s why they were so surprised when Hinata agreed to it when Natsu broke down on the side of his bed and begged him to accept the treatment. 

Like it was nothing. 

Like there was no risk at all, that it would all be fine.

He smiled like he was the happiest person in the world when she hugged him in response to it, but Suga could see the terror hiding in his eyes now that his sister wasn’t staring at him. 

Suga waited until Hinata’s mother took Natsu from the room to bring it up - the rest of the team had been drifting in and out all day when they got the chance to show up for a while.

“You’re scared. Of what? The surgery failing or losing the feelings?”

Hinata stared at him for a moment before he looked down. “…losing the memories. It’s more likely the longer you wait and…”

Suga sighed, but didn’t argue with him. 

He wasn’t afraid to die, and that was startling to Suga. 

* * *

The last time they saw him before surgery, he was just as bubbly as always, but he had a blood-soaked blue rose bud in his palm. 

If anything, it acted as a sign that things would either go well or it would be the last time they saw him period. 

“We’ll be here to see you when you get out of surgery,” Daichi reassured him when he saw the sad tinge to his normal smile. 

“Yeah, I’ll see you!” Hinata reassured. 

Of course, that reassurance didn’t make any of them feel better as Hinata disappeared for surgery. 

It had a hard tinge of finality that they didn’t like. 


End file.
